After playing spot minutes as a reserve his first two seasons, Diallo had emerged as the leader of the Thunder's second unit, increasing his scoring average from 6.9 PPG to 11.9 while tripling his assists per game from 0.8 to 2.4.
The downside is Diallo still struggles to knock down outside shots. He's a career 26% 3-point shooter, with marginal improvement to 29% over the past two seasons. A free throw percentage in the 60s doesn't offer much hope of long-term improvement.
Diallo's success has primarily come from attacking the basket as aggressively as possible. That has worked well in transition. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Diallo's 3.7 shot attempts per 100 possessions in transition rank 22nd among regular players, and he has posted an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 68.1% on those shots. Take those away and Diallo's eFG% drops to 45.8% outside of transition, putting him in the 22nd percentile league-wide.
As my ESPN colleague Zach Lowe
noted in a recent 10 things column, Diallo has done a better job this season of finding teammates when opponents cut off his drives in the half court, accounting for that improved assist rate. There have been times he has looked downright difficult to stop, including averaging 16.6 PPG, 8.0 RPG and 4.0 APG in five starts.